1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to wheel composites of the type having resiliently compressive components.
2. Description of Related Art
Although the tire and suspension technologies of the automobile have made great strides in recent years, the steel wheel has not had a substantial improvement in close to a century. Performance of the wheel, generally accepted as being poor, has never been the subject of any successful research and development. Advancement in noise attenuation and brake size efficiency have consistently not produced practical answers employed in the steel wheel.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,034, issued to Gergele on Aug. 3, 1993, shows a heavy-duty wheel with adaptive tire bead retention members extending around the wheel. The tire bead retention members are used to eliminate the necessity of the multi-part wheel rims without losing brake clearance. The tire bead retention members extend over the existing incompressible flanges to allow the proper mating engagement with the tires having a different tire bead profile than that of the wheel. More specifically, the vulcanized rubber tire bead retention members are merely inserts used in conjunction with a wheel having incompressible rims so a single wheel may seat two different tire bead profiles. As is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,034, the inserts require the existence of the incompressible flanges to work properly. Additionally, the tire bead retention members do not eliminate the requirement of a well because the tire bead profile is designed to be forced over the incompressible tire bead retention members.
Compressible tire bead retention members reduce road noise and eliminate the need for the wheel well. The current designs are, however, deficient in that it is difficult to dismount the tire from the wheel.